Comelec: Only 800 voters per precinct

CEBU, Philippines - The Commission on Elections has reduced the number of voters per precinct for the May 9, 2016 automated elections.

“One cluster will not have more than 800 voters,” said Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano.

He said their head office has issued a guideline that set the maximum number of voters per precinct to 800 from the current 1,000 voters.

The change is due to lessons learned from problems faced during the 2010 and 2013 elections, when only an average of 80 percent or 800 cast their votes.

He said it was because voters during previous elections tended to go home after hours of queuing just to be able to vote.

“Hopefully, we could find a way nga mapaspas ang pagbotar. One way is to lower the number of each cluster precincts,”

As of last August, Cebu has an estimated 2.5 million registered voters from 1,203 barangays. Last October 31was the cut off for voters’ registration.

The coming presidential elections plus the convenience of registering inside malls were seen to have captured the interest of the public to register, undergoing the process of reactivation, updating of profiles, validation of registration records, and submission of biometrics data.

“We ask them not just to register, we ask them to vote” Castillano said.

He said that with the reduction in the number of voters per precinct, Comelec is looking at an additional 3,000 vote-counting machines.  (FREEMAN)